Navigating the Paper Trail

January 31, 2019 by Inclusion Solutions

For almost 20 years, a number of polling places across the country have purchased and successfully used electronic voting systems, citing auditability, transparency and efficiency as some of these systems’ biggest benefits. But new concerns about vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines have surfaced in states such as Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, turning election administrators’ and voters’ eyes toward a more low-tech voting method: paper ballots.

From the Hanging Chad and Back Again

Following the notoriously contested 2000 presidential election (remember those “hanging chads?”), the United States transitioned away from paper ballots, and with financial support from the Help America Vote Act, states replaced their lever and punch-card voting machines with Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems. In 2018, however, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that Russian actors surveilled approximately 20 state election systems to decrease voter confidence in the U.S. voting process. The committee concluded that many electronic voting systems are currently outdated and recommended all states either return to paper ballots or mandate that electronic machines produce an auditable paper hard copy.

Georgia
in the Spotlight

Ironically, Georgia
was the first state in the nation to move to electronic voting machines in the
wake of Florida’s punch-card ballots and hanging chad controversy during the
2000 presidential election, and in fact Georgia is currently one of only a
handful of states that rely entirely on electronic voting machines without a
verifiable paper trail. Now, however, Georgia’s voters are some of the
loudest in their demands for
paper ballots, and the November mid-term elections were flavored with
contentious debates over election security.
Some voters claimed the machines switched their votes
from one candidate to another in the November 2018 election for governor, and surprisingly
low vote count totals in the lieutenant governor’s race were blamed on the
voting machines – sparking headlines across the country and prompting a lawsuit.

The Case for Paper

Many election integrity experts believe evidence of vulnerabilities is irrefutable
and claim computer technology innovations and increased Internet accessibility worldwide
have made electronic voting systems easy targets for hackers. On the heels of
so many questions regarding the systems’ security and integrity, almost two
dozen states and the District of Columbia have decided to use only paper
ballots going forward, with more evaluating the switch.

States
Liz Howard, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York
University School of Law, “If an electronic voting system is connected to
the Internet or has wireless connectivity capability, then it’s easy to understand
how and why the voting equipment is vulnerable to hacking…Even machines not
connected to the Internet are hackable through compromised memory cards used to
set up the voting machine before each specific election or remote access
software.”

Compromising the integrity of paper ballots, in contrast,
requires significant manual labor, time and effort, reducing the likelihood
actors seeking to undermine U.S. elections would be successful. As Phil Keisling, founder of the National
Vote at Home Institute points out, “No election system is totally
invulnerable to any kind of hacking… [If] you want to steal an election at the
ballot level you literally have to commit individual felonies ballot by
ballot.”

The
Best Defense is a Good Offense

Whether or not electronic voting
systems are truly vulnerable and paper ballots are about to make a huge
comeback, all voters need to remember that the more people vote, the more
likely it is election interference will be detected. The best way to promote election security is
to get out and vote (early, not often)!

From
electronic voting systems, to paper ballots, to vote-by mail provisions,
Inclusion Solutions has the equipment
and supplies you need to improve your voters’
experience. Contact us today.